The present invention relates to an electrical apparatus constituted so as to be able to connect with a battery for discharging after being charged, more particularly to an electrical apparatus capable of connecting with an intelligent battery including a CPU.
Power is directly supplied from a commercial power source such as an AC adapter to electrical apparatuses such as an information terminal unit represented by a notebook-type personal computer (notebook PC), a personal unit such as a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), various types of audio units, and a video camera and moreover, power is supplied to these units from a battery (storage battery, secondary battery, or battery) which can be used many times while repeating charge and discharge. This type of battery uses a nickel-hydrogen battery (NiMH battery) or nickel-cadmium battery that has a large capacity and a low price. Moreover, there are a lithium-ion battery having an energy density for unit weight higher than that of a nickel-cadmium battery and a lithium-polymer battery using a solid polymer instead of a liquid electrolyte.
In the case of a battery constituted so as to be able to connect with an electrical apparatus as a battery pack uses the so-called intelligent battery including a CPU. The CPU of the intelligent battery executes various types of controls such as generation of various types of information about batteries and holding of information including receiving of current and voltage measurement results when cells in an intelligent battery are charged and discharged and checking of these measurement results, checking of the number of cycles, and obtaining of the information about service lives. Moreover, the CPU realizes the communication with a system in accordance with a protocol conforming to the SBS (Smart Battery System) by being connected to a system-side controller to be connected. Furthermore, an intelligent battery having a plurality of CPUs instead of one CPU is used.
However, a CPU of an intelligent battery may hang up and become inoperable or inoperative due to ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge) which damages an electronic unit and a circuit due to discharge of accumulated static electricity. In this case, the CPU cannot normally send various pieces of information of a battery to a system and an error due to communication failure is displayed on a LED or a screen of the system side.
In this case, when a CPU provided for a general apparatus hangs up, it is possible to restore the CPU from the hang-up state by turning on/off the power source and thereby resetting the CPU. However, an intelligent battery formed as a battery pack generally does not have a resetting function and therefore, there is no way that the built-in CPU recovers from the hang-up state. In this case, it is unavoidable to handle the intelligent battery as a defective battery though the battery is not damaged in hardware and a problem on economy is also large.
The present invention is made to solve the above problems and its purpose is to restore a malfunctioning battery to a normal state and reduce the number of defective batteries.
It is another purpose of the present invention to optimize the recovery of a battery from a hang-up state by stepwise resetting.
To achieve the above purposes, the present invention has a resetting function for software- or hardware-resetting a battery when a CPU in the battery hangs up and becomes inoperable or inoperative to make it possible to recover the CPU of the battery from a hang-up state. That is, the present invention is an electrical apparatus having a body for consuming power and constituted so as to be able to connect with a battery for supplying power to the body by discharging after being charged, comprising trouble recognition means for recognizing a trouble of the battery and resetting means for resetting the battery in accordance with the recognition by the trouble recognition means.
Moreover, the present invention comprises a system for consuming power, a CPU for communicating with the system, and a battery for supplying power to the system by discharging after being charged to reset the CPU of the battery when the CPU hangs up and becomes inoperable.
In this case, the system outputs a resetting command using a communication protocol to the CPU of the battery and the CPU of the battery executes the resetting command and then outputs the completion of the resetting command to the system. Therefore, the system is preferable in that it can correspond to a predetermined trouble that can be solved through software resetting. Moreover, the system hardware-resets the CPU of the battery by using a signal line extending between the battery and the system. Therefore, the system is superior in that it is possible to restore a hung-up intelligent battery to a normal state even if a trouble that cannot be solved by software resetting or a trouble preventing communication occurs.
Moreover, the present invention is a computer equipment constituted so as to be able to connect with a battery for discharging after being charged to supply power from the battery to a system, comprising a controller for controlling the battery and communicating with the battery and a CPU of the system for executing a utility program of the battery and the controller resets the battery in accordance with a designation from the utility program when it is recognized that a trouble occurs in the communication with the battery. Furthermore, the present invention further comprises a display for displaying a screen for prompting a user to execute resetting when the controller recognizes that a trouble occurs in the communication with the battery. Because the display displays a screen for prompting a user to execute refreshing for completely discharging a battery after resetting the battery, it is superior in that the actual-capacity data of the battery can be suited for the remaining capacity data of the battery.
Moreover, the present invention is a computer equipment capable of connecting with a battery for supplying power to a system by discharging after being charged, comprising communication means for communicating with the battery in accordance with a predetermined protocol, software-resetting means for software-resetting the battery by using the communication means when a predetermined trouble occurs in the communication by the communication means, and hardware-resetting means for forcibly initializing the battery.
In this case, the software resetting means software-resets a battery by using a software-resetting command in which an existing protocol such as the SBS is extended. Moreover, the hardware-resetting means hardware-resets a battery by using a terminal for a system to recognize presence or absence of the battery.
From another viewpoint, the present invention is an intelligent battery connected to an electrical apparatus to supply power to the electrical apparatus by discharging after being charged, comprising a cell for supplying power, a CPU for recognizing a state of the cell and communicating with the electrical apparatus, and resetting means for resetting the CPU in accordance with the control by the electrical apparatus. In this case, the resetting means performs software resetting for resetting a program to be executed by a CPU and/or hardware resetting to be applied to the resetting terminal of the CPU.
Moreover, the present invention can be regarded as a control method of a battery connected to a body for consuming power to supply power to the body by discharging after being charged. An aspect of the present invention determines whether a predetermined trouble occurs in the communication between a battery and a body and when it is determined that the predetermined trouble occurs, software resetting is designated to a user and when software resetting is designated by the user, the battery is software-reset. Moreover, it is determined whether the communication can be made between the battery and the body and when communication cannot be made, the battery is hardware-reset. Furthermore, it is determined whether a predetermined trouble occurs in the communication between the battery and the body, software resetting is executed when it is determined that the predetermined trouble occurs, and when software resetting does not normally end, hardware resetting is applied to the battery.